


All the Wrestling Has Left Me Bruised

by usablehoney



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oh to have a Lover that would help to bandage my Eyeball Wounds, Please enjoy this short and tonally inconsistent piece of writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25158763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usablehoney/pseuds/usablehoney
Summary: Elements of Jon’s humanity slip away from him after he brings about the apocalypse.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 12
Kudos: 125





	All the Wrestling Has Left Me Bruised

Jon is keeping a list of changes on the blank side of a receipt. 

He’s starting to run out of room, adding to the ever growing list with every strange, horrific new feature of his mind and body that crops up. His neat scrawl, once evenly spaced, is growing cramped and illegible to the ordinary eye. Jon is, however, capable of understanding any written word, regardless of language or legibility. It’s another new ability that leaves him feeling sick with himself as he bitterly adds it to the list.

It was not a divine ascendence (descendence?) into becoming The Archivist. It was painful, and wretched, and it takes merciless blows to whatever remains of Jon’s humanity every day. 

First, his stomach stopped asking him for food, and then, for water. It all just tastes bland and heavy on his tongue, nothing like the rich satisfaction of reading a statement aloud to himself in an empty room. 

He burns through dozens of accounts from people describing, in painstaking detail, the most disturbing, horrific events of their lives, and it fills him with a satisfaction that has no human name. He feels his skin prickle, and he wonders how he  _ ever  _ felt full after eating regular human meals.

Though, he does always drink the tea Martin brings him, trying to savour the flavour of ginger and lemon, even if it’s not what his mind is screaming at him to indulge in. It is warm, and if Jon focuses hard enough, pleasantly sour. The steam that becomes fog on his glasses is it’s own small oasis, and, not bothering to wipe it off, Jon blindly gives Martin a kiss on the cheek to thank him for the tea. 

“You’re welcome,” Martin says, and Jon can hear the smallest, self-satisfied smile in his voice. “If you’re feeling up to it, maybe you’d like to come into the kitchen later? I’m going to start dinner soon, and I wouldn’t mind some help— If you feel like it.”

Jon, still breathing in the steam coming off his warm tea, pauses for a moment. 

“Yes, Martin,” he says, taking a long sip from his mug. It tastes like waking up in love. “You get it started, I’ll be out in a bit.”

Martin hums his surprised approval. It’s a rare occasion these days (since the start of the apocalypse) that Jon has the energy to be very helpful around the house. Basic tasks seem to evade him, like a dream upon waking. But things are easier, Jon’s noticed, if he does them with Martin. It’s all a bit more manageable with Martin. 

Despite his lethargy, Jon also doesn’t sleep anymore. His mind, incessantly buzzing like a lightbulb running on too much electricity, will not let him rest. Jon yearns for the days when his body would eventually crash after days of work and restless nights; Now, he has no such luck. He simply lies on the firm mattress in Daisy’s cabin with his eyes wide open, trying in vain to ignore the endless flood of terror and sorrow that occupies his mind. 

However, when the visions of suffering souls become particularly aggressive, and his skin begins to itch like a cheap Christmas sweater, Jon turns to look at Martin, asleep in the bed beside him. 

There are thoughts of bloodstained fangs, and endless, twisting hallways pounding at the inside of Jon’s mind, but also, there is Martin. 

After this ground-breaking observation, Jon works himself into something resembling a peaceful trance, by thinking to himself over and over again things like Martin’s exact maximum lung capacity, the number of strands of hair on his head, the distance between his shoulder blades, the number of light freckles that dot his face like constellations in the night sky, the color of his eyes and how bright they look when Martin smiles, how weak Jon feels when he looks into them, and on, and on… 

And in the morning, Jon feels a little more human. 

Which is nice, in a spiritual sense, but it makes the headaches worse. The crushing pressure of infinite knowledge weighs heavily on something as brittle as a human skull. When the migraines hit Jon the worst, usually in the early mornings, his agonized mind starts to wander again.

He finds himself imagining something much, much greater than himself, pressing up against the inside of his thin, pockmarked skin; Something terrible and inhuman, with a hundred mouths, and scores more eyes, breaking out of his weary, mortal frame in a disgusting show of gorey apotheosis. The thought makes him shudder, with an unnamable feeling that  _ should _ be disgust, but isn’t, and he goes to sit in the empty bathtub to listen to statements. 

Jon, from his vantage point in Daisy’s bathtub, wishes he could leave the world behind and watch its affairs from the moon, where no one will ask him what became of the Jonathan Sims that liked punk music and giving cats scratches behind their ears. Maybe then he could just be The Archivist, guiltlessly gorging himself on the fears of a world he is no longer a part of. 

When Jon grits his teeth and stumbles dazedly out of the bathroom, muscling his way through his own ennui and into the kitchen, he looks different. His eyes, usually brown like rich, damp soil, are the green of toxic waste. Yellow pus that oozes and crusts like candy left in the sun coats his pale scars, and he walks like the battery in him is running low, like every step hurts. He feels, for all the world, like a monster emerging from a dark cave. 

But Martin is there, with a loving expression and a warm washcloth. 

“I’m a  _ monster,”  _ Jon protests, as Martin cleans his skin, first with warm water, and then with alcohol that burns through Jon’s wounds like cleansing fire. 

“You’re not a monster,” Martin retorts, opening a box of white bandages. “You’re just Jon, and I- You shouldn’t go locking yourself in the bathroom anymore, yeah? If you  _ need  _ to hear a statement, we- we can listen to them together. Okay?”

Jon sighs incredulously. “Okay.”

Jon bites down hard on his lip, as lurid green eyes, glistening and hungry, blink to life from every old scar marring his skin. This is not the first time this has happened, but that certainly doesn’t make it any less disgusting. Jon sighs with relief as Martin gingerly wraps bandages around the eyes opening in his wounds, obscuring their terrifying gaze for the time being.

When they are both satisfied with the damage control, Jon wraps his arms around Martin’s soft, warm body, and whispers desperate gratitude and love into his ear. Martin just chuckles softly, and rubs small circles into Jon’s back with his thumbs. Jon shuts his eyes, and melts into Martin’s touch like butter on hot toast. 

As Martin deepens their embrace, a single thought enters Jon’s mind with perfect, factual clarity, standing out from a sea of infinite knowledge like a shining star; Monsters aren’t loved like this. He can’t be a monster if he is loved like this. 

**Author's Note:**

> Transforming into an eldritch monster scary + bad, Martin K Blackwood loving + good


End file.
